Family
by KazOfScotland
Summary: The Sequel to The Reason For... Tommy and the ICC team rescue the children, and Tommy's daughter wakes up in hospital following her being held hostage. Part 4 of my Crossing Lines series


Tommy McConnel was pissed off. Not just slightly pissed off, but full blown nothing could calm him, the next person who said the wrong thing was dead, pissed off. He had specific plans for that day: go to work, have an easy day, cut out early, go home to get dressed up and then, then he was going to take his daughter out to dinner to celebrate her fourteenth birthday. But that plan went out the window.

Now, he was stood with Eva, Sebastian, Louis, the detective in charge and a S.W.A.T team about to raid the Grote of Sint-Jacobskerk to remove the teenagers being held hostage of which his daughter was one. That pissed him off beyond anything else because this was meant to be a day of fun for him and his daughter but instead his daughter, now fourteen year old Saoirse Kelly McConnel, was in danger when he was supposed to be protecting her. It was his duty as her father to ensure that she was safe and that nothing bad happened to her, and he'd failed her.

His heartbeat was faster than normal, and for once he couldn't tell if it was fear or adrenaline. He hoped it was adrenalin but he knew, just knew, that he was probably wrong and that it was more than likely fear over his daughter's well being. His daughter meant everything to him and the idea of anything bad, anything horrific happening to her, destroyed him.

"McConnel, we're ready on your mark. Your brother is in position and there are officers situated at the Mauritshuis Museum," Detective Luca Meyer informed the former criminal turned Detective as the waited for the go ahead to proceed on with the breech.

Twenty-three minutes after the last piece of contact with her father, Saoirse Kelly McConnel awoke to the jarring sound of three gunshots. The girl was startled by the sight of her father lying on the ground, bleeding; yet, she was comforted by the sight of him smiling in her direction. As she soaked in the warmth his smile she felt safe, safe enough to return to the warm blackness of unconsciousness.

Ever since she had felt that gun pressed against her back by her step-father, Lachlan Harris, Saoirse had been terrified. Whilst she had never really met Harris, she knew just that he was not the sort of person you wanted to cross or make angry. But now that she knew her dad had stopped him, the terror had faded away and she fell back into unconsciousness without the unwillingness that had occurred only twenty-three minutes earlier.

Fourteen year old Saoirse had little to no idea of what had happened to any of those involved in the hostage situation during the time since the end of the phone call with her dad and when she awoke properly in the hospital. She was scared because when she woke up there was two men sat next to her hospital bed, but her father was nowhere in sight. It terrified her because the last time she could remember seeing him, he was bleeding from a gunshot wound, or at least what she thought was a gunshot.

"Daidí?" Saoirse exclaimed in a hoarse voice as she trashed around on the bed trying to see if her father was in the room anywhere near her or if there was any sign of him having been in her room. She began to cough due to the dryness of her throats as she kept scanning every inch of the room looking for her father.

"Essie, calm down," Sebastian's voice cut through her fear as a hand settled on her shoulder to hold her in place. "Tommy's okay and you can see him really soon, I promise," the German assured the teenager before he slowly lifted his hand from her shoulder to allow her to sit up and get a drink of water. He had known Tommy and his daughter for longer than everyone on the ICC team knew.

She coughed a few times before she spoke "What… happened to… Orlaith?" The fear in Saoirse's voice broke Sebastian's heart - this little girl had been through far too much in the mere four years that he had known her, never mind what she had been through prior to when he met her and Tommy.

"I'm Carl Hickman, I'm sorry," Hickman responded, as he approached the bed that the young fourteen year old Irish girl. "Your mother, well she was injured, and she is currently in surgery… but it does not look as though there will be a positive outcome," the former NYPD Detective continued, and despite the number of death notifications he had given, this one was difficult. He knew it was probably because the girl he was giving the information to was barely fourteen years old, and that barely fourteen year old was the daughter of a man whom he trusted with his life.

"It's okay, Mr Hickman, you don't have to apologise," Saoirse stuttered out, her voice still hoarse but stronger than when she initially woke up. "You never have to apologise for good news," she continued to stutter out when she realised that the Detective did not understand in any way why she rejected his condolences. Saoirse knew just how private her dad was, so it didn't really surprise her that they didn't know the truth about Orlaith.

"Essie, are you going to be okay if Eva and the Detective were to come in and interview you about what happened at The Grot of Sint-Jacobskerk?" Sebastian asked as she realised that the fourteen year old felt far more awkward than she was willing to admit. He knew that Saoirse hated admitting what she had experienced because of Orlaith, and that if he left it, she would feel required to explain to Hickman why she wasn't upset by Orlaith's likely death.

She never verbally responded but she gave the slight nod, which was enough for Hickman to leave to get Eva and Detective Meyer. In all honesty, Saoirse just wanted to get everything over and done with so that she could see her dad.

It took just over an hour for Detective Meyer and Eva to interview Saoirse and throughout the majority of that time Sebastian had been trying to assure Tommy that the fourteen year old was fine, she just had a concussion and probably some mental issues to work through. So it was of no surprise that Tommy went from worried and beyond pissed off to relieved in as much time as it took to click your fingers when Saoirse walked into his hospital room with Eva.

Sebastian had took a step back when he'd heard the door open and he was actually relieved to have done so when the fourteen year old launched herself across the room and landed where he would have been standing if he had not moved. That was when Eva and Hickman got to see a side of Tommy that they had never seen before; the parental side where his sole focus was on making sure that Saoirse was in fact in one piece.

"Are you okay, Jelly-Bean?" was the start of the conversation between father and daughter, but it was all that the ICC team could understand giving that the duo began speaking Gaelic and then the Tinker's dialect. However, Eva was shocked to just how much Tommy relaxed as the fourteen year old sat next to him on the hospital bed and refused to let go of his arm.


End file.
